Cancer accommodation units at BHS on the way

By
FIONA HENDERSON

BALLARAT Health Services’ $1.25 million cancer accommodation units will be installed on Thursday.

BALLARAT Health Services’ $1.25 million cancer accommodation units will be installed on Thursday.

Gerard Kennedy, manager for Ballarat Base Hospital’s capital building projects, in front of one of the walls for the hospital’s new car park. PICTURE: JEREMY BANNISTER

The six pre-fabricated units will be lifted by crane onto the former Pleasant Homes site by Kilsyth-based company Precom, which will also connect on-site services and landscape over the next few weeks.

BHS capital building projects manager Gerard Kennedy said the fully-furnished, modular units would include a master bedroom, disability-compliant en suite, kitchen and rear patio. One of the units will also have full disabled access.

“Each unit has the ability to sleep up to four people, which will allow families to stay together when a loved one is undergoing treatment at Ballarat Regional Integrated Cancer Centre,” Mr Kennedy said.

“We’re hoping to open on June 10 as long as there are no delays.”

He said the site would also house BHS’s new five-bed Mother Baby Mental Health Unit, currently in the design and development stage, and works were also on track for an October helipad opening at the Base Hospital.

“They poured the first floor slab last week.”

Mr Kennedy said this would speed up the process as works could now continue both horizontally and vertically.

“We are on time and on budget,” he said.

Mr Kennedy said the helipad, stairwells and elevators would open first, with a multi-deck car park to begin operating six weeks later.

Works are also continuing on the Base Hospital’s new MRI facility, expected to open mid-June, and a 20-chair dental clinic at Phoenix College, which La Trobe University will use for teaching purposes.

BHS chief executive officer Andrew Rowe said it was exciting to see all these capital work projects under way.